MIDTERM BLUES

Trump Goon Fumes at Pollsters as Embarrassing Numbers Pile Up

Trump’s allies are lashing out at pollsters as grim economic surveys snowball.

A top White House official is pushing back furiously against a wave of increasingly negative polls on Donald Trump’s economic record.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung rallied to the defense of Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, after Hassett dismissed the latest surveys showing Americans are increasingly unhappy with the economy.

“Hassett is 100% correct,” Cheung wrote on X. “Polls were wrong in 2016, 2020, and 2024.”

Cheung went further, arguing that Americans have essentially lost faith in polling.

“There’s a reason why pollsters won’t poll the American people’s trust in biased polls,” he said. “It’s because the public would have close to 0% confidence in these fake polls.”

Hassett made the comments Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, where he rejected surveys showing widespread economic pessimism ahead of midterm elections on Nov. 3 that are expected to cost Trump control of Congress.

“Ahead of an election cycle, the fact that there’s, you know, possibly partisan pollsters telling us that the people are really really depressed, it’s a classic Democrat move, and I just don’t buy it,” Hassett told Jake Tapper.

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“Because if it were true, if the polls were any value for thinking about what’s going on with consumers, then we should look at the consumption data and say, ‘Jeez, yeah, that’s right. People aren’t spending.’ But, in fact, the retailers are doing well,” he added.

It comes after a string of dire polls on the economy for the president.

An AP-NORC survey found only 26 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and just 17 percent approve of his handling of living costs. Roughly 65 percent blamed Trump’s policies for high prices.

Quinnipiac’s latest national poll found just 31 percent approve of his economic performance, while 65 percent disapprove—an all-time low for Trump in either term.

In the latest CNN/SSRS poll, two-thirds of Americans said Trump has made the economy worse, while a majority said the Iran war has harmed their personal finances.

Trump’s approval rating has been tanking ever since he launched his war on Iran in February. The war has seen energy prices skyrocket. AAA figures show the average price of fuel at $4.37 a gallon, while diesel stands at $6.32.

Food prices have also risen, with the price of ground beef up 7.2 percent over the past 12 months, while seafood, sugar, and coffee are all up around 6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, Trump insists that everything is fine.

“We have the greatest numbers of any president in the history of our country, and I can’t get the word out,” Trump said Thursday during a speech in Texas.

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“The only thing we’re doing badly at is public relations,” he added, later insisting, “Everyone thinks the prices are high because of me, but they’re not.”

The economic data, however, offer a more complicated picture.

Inflation remains elevated at 3.4 percent, while hiring has cooled and unemployment has risen to 4.2 percent.

At the same time, mortgage rates have climbed to 7.28 percent, their highest level since November 2023, adding another obstacle for Americans trying to buy homes.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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